


Snapshots of What Could Have Been

by defenestratingreason



Category: RWBY
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hogwarts AU, Loss, Prior Character Death, Trans Jaune, real world AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-16 21:55:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13062936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defenestratingreason/pseuds/defenestratingreason
Summary: Nora gets stuck in a tree. Penny joins Team JNPR. Jaune fights off a basilisk. Ordinary, everyday stuff.A series of RWBY W.I.P.s I’ll never finish because I’m not in the fandom anymore, but I’m proud of the writing I’ve done and put a lot of my life into writing these, so I might as well share them in the state they’re in. There’s only a few in here right now, but I”m going to keep adding as I go through my fic folder (spoiler alert, there’s a LOT to go through).Works are presented in order from most complete to least complete, and character and relationship tags are in order, first by most frequent, then by order of appearance.





	1. That Fucking Tree Post From Tumblr

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jaune thinks a tree is talking to him, Nora has no impulse control, and Ruby just wants to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on this tumblr post: http://windsorgirllove. tumblr.com/post/154648260168/likesdinos-jackmymeat420-corginator
> 
> This was originally going to be a Jaune/Nora oneshot or short fic, but I never really figured out where it was going.
> 
> Also, Jaune is trans in this fic, as he was in most of my fics unless directly stated otherwise.

“Hey! Psst!”

Jaune stopped in his tracks and turned around. Did that tree just--

“Hey, blond boy! Help me out!”

Yeah, that tree was definitely talking to him. Either that, or he was hearing things. He shook his head to clear it and took a few steps forward.

“Uh… hello?” he ventured. What was proper etiquette when talking to a tree, anyway?

The tree groaned. “Ugh, _finally_. I’ve been trying to get someone to talk to me for, like, an _hour_!”

“Um.” God, he hoped this was a dream. He pinched himself. It hurt. “What about?”

“Getting me down from here! _Duh_!”

Jaune blinked several time in quick succession, and then everything fell into place. “Oh.” He let out a massive gust of air and chuckled in relief. “You’re a _person_.”

“Of course I’m a person, what else did you think I could be?”

"Nothing,” he said quickly.

“Did you think I was a sloth? Because I can imitate a sloth.”

“No, I didn’t--”

The person in the tree let out a high pitched animal call that made Jaune jump backwards. In doing so, he slipped on the mud and fell, landing squarely on his rear-end, and the tree person broke off into giggles.

“Shut up.” Jaune pushed himself back up and brushed off his pants. “You’re the one stuck in a tree.”

That shut the voice up immediately. “I’m not _stuck_ ,”’ they snapped. “I just… can’t get down.”

“Right.” Jaune crossed his arms. “Because those are obviously two completely different things.”

“Just get me down from here!”

“Okay, okay!” Jaune lifted his hands in a placating gesture. “I’ll see what I can do.” He wrapped his hands around the lowest branch and glanced around the base of the tree for a good foothold. Finding it, he scrambled up the side of the trunk and pulled himself over into a seated position. “How did you get stuck up there, anyway?” He grabbed another branch and pulled himself up to level two.

“I saw this tumblr post that told me to drop whatever I was doing and climb a tree.”

“So you decided that 1 am in the middle of December was a good time to listen to it.”

“Of course! What kind of adventurer would I be if I turned down a challenge like that?”

“So you consider yourself an adventurer.” Level three. He was steadily gaining on the voice, but the further he got into the pine tree’s branches, the harder it was getting to see. The voice was much higher up than he’d thought it was.

“I’m going to discover a continent one day.”

Jaune’s hand fumbled on the branch. “You’re _what_?”

“They’re gonna name it _Valkyria_. Because my last name is Valkyrie.”

Jaune had to actually stop climbing and sit down on the branch. “Your last name is Valkyrie? _How_ \--”

“My mom had it legally changed,” the voice said matter-of-factly, “because it used to be Crapper.”

Jaune couldn’t help it. He fell back against the tree trunk and laughed, clapping his hand over his mouth and nose to try and prevent the sound of his sniggering from reaching the tree-victim’s ears. Unfortunately, his attempts were less than stellar.

“Well, we can’t all have perfect family trees, Mr. … Whatever your name is.”

“Arc. Jaune Arc.” Taking a deep breath to compose himself, he reached up and began climbing again.

“What, like the French lady?”

“No, like me.” No need to mention he’d named himself after his childhood hero. With one final pull, he swung himself over the next branch and found himself staring into the shadowy face of what, at this moment, seemed like the world’s tiniest human, with big, bright eyes that shone through the darkness, though he couldn’t tell what color they were. Upon seeing his face, the person grinned and extended a hand.

“Nora Valkyrie.”

Jaune accepted the hand, and then had to grab another branch just to avoid falling from the violence of the shake.

“Jesus!” He yanked his hand back and took a deep breath, righting his teetering body. “You don’t fuck around with handshakes!”

The person -- Nora -- tilted her head innocently. “I love meeting new people.”

“Yeah, I can tell.” He looked down, trying to figure out how to get Nora to the ground, and then realized he couldn’t see. “Fuck.”

“What’s wrong?”

“... I didn’t think this far ahead.”

Nora groaned and leaned back against the trunk. “Worst. Rescue. _Ever_.”

“Hey, at least I’m trying!” He shifted and pulled his phone out of his back pocket, for comfort more than anything, but once he had it in hand, an idea occurred to him that should have done so much earlier. Still holding onto the branch with one hand, he navigated to his contacts and pressed the call-button next to the name _Ruby Rose._

Jaune waited tensely as the phone rang, and then breathed a sigh of relief when the ring broke off into a click. When the voice on the other end responded, it was slow and groggy.

“Jaune, what the heck, it’s two in the morning.”

“I know, and I’m really sorry about this, but do you think you could bring me a ladder? I’m kind of stuck in a tree.”

“... _How_?”

“I was trying to rescue someone else who got stuck.”

“Some knight in shining armor you are.”

By this point in their friendship, he’d learned that exhausted Ruby was always at least five times meaner than awake Ruby, so the quip didn’t hurt as much as it would from someone else.

“Can you please just… send help? The tree’s on my street, you can stay over at my house afterwards. I’ll make you hot chocolate and bring you breakfast in bed.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the phone. Then:

“There’d better be waffles, Noodle Boy.”

And the call clicked off. Jaune lowered the phone and sighed.

“Was that your girlfriend?”

Jaune jumped and nearly dropped the phone.

“Or boyfriend,” Nora continued. “I don’t judge.”

“No,” Jaune squeaked, because the thought of _Ruby_ … He shuddered. “That was _not_ my girlfriend. In fact, I’m--”  
Recently, horrifically single. But this tree gremlin didn’t need to know that.

“... best friends with a lesbian,” he finished lamely.

_Wow, Jaune. Smooth._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For clarity’s sake, Jaune is walking home directly from having been broken up with. I forget who did it, but I have some vague kind of memory of it having been Ren, which leads to a really awkward moment when Jaune finds out that Nora is Ren’s childhood friend.


	2. JNPR 2.0

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Battle was won, and Beacon still stands — but no battle comes without loss of life, and now Jaune, Nora, and Ren have to figure out how to navigate their second year at Beacon without Pyrrha. To complicate things, there’s a new transfer student, Penny Polendina — and JNPR’s the team with an open slot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The premise of this story was that Beacon managed to win the battle against Cinder at the Vytal tournament, but Pyrrha still lost her life in the fight. Another part of the premise was that Penny and Pyrrha never faced off against each other, and thus Penny was never killed.
> 
> This first scene takes place in Ozpin’s office, where the remaining members of Team JNPR have been summoned to meet, a day before the other students arrive on campus for their second year at Beacon.

“We have a new student joining us this year. A second-year transfer from Atlas. Miss Penny Polendina -- do you --”

Nora nodded. “Yeah, we know her.”

Ren frowned, turning to his partner. “I don't.”

“She's Ruby’s friend,” Jaune said quietly. “The one with the red hair and the big bow.”

Ren’s face cleared in recognition, and he nodded. “Oh, yes.” He turned back to Ozpin. “And you've called us here because…”

Ozpin folded his hands on his desk. “Miss Polendina leaves her teammates behind in Atlas. She's far too advanced to pair with first years, and while I could probably put her on a third or even fourth year team, she has expressed interest in remaining in the same grade as her friends on Team RWBY. I thought, perhaps, since you now have an open spot on your team--”

Jaune winced. Ozpin broke off.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound flippant--”

“It's fine,” Jaune said quickly. “It's just, um.” He swallowed and shook his head. “Go on.”

Nora slipped her hand over Jaune’s and gave it a squeeze.

“You want us to take her,” Ren finished.

“Precisely.”

A long silence followed. Ren and Nora turned to their leader, but he was staring at the floor, seemingly unresponsive.

“Can we have some time to think about it?” Nora said finally.

“Of course.” Ozpin gestured towards the door, indicating that they were free to leave. “Just let me know by tomorrow afternoon.”

\-----

Their room was much the same as they had left it four months ago, if perhaps a little staler and emptier.

“I'll get it,” Nora said, dropping her suitcase next to her bed as she crossed to the windows. A few seconds later, a gust of fresh air burst through the space, carrying with it the expectant smell of the beginning of spring. It made the room feel more like itself again already; Pyrrha had always liked to leave the windows open.

Jaune hesitated as Nora collapsed onto her mattress with a loud squeak, directly across from where Ren had already started laying the contents of his suitcase out on the red, academy-issued coverlet.

“Does… does anyone mind if I take her bed?”

Ren and Nora glanced up at him, surprised.

“Of course we don't mind,” Nora said.

“And neither would she,” Ren added.

“Oh, she _definitely_ wouldn't--” Nora broke off, suddenly realizing how very not funny anymore that was. “I mean, she…”

Jaune nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

After an awkward pause, the other two returned to their unpacking. Jaune dragged his suitcase across the floor and sat down on Pyrrha’s bed, staring at his own -- or his former one, now. The four months intervening had given them time to come to terms with this, time to heal -- but the last time any of them had been in this room was the day that Pyrrha died, and it felt like every memory was coming to the surface at once.

He leaned back on the uncovered pillow, staring at the familiar cracks in the ceiling from a spot he'd never occupied before.

The headboard still smelled like her perfume.

\-----

[ _this next bit picks up mid-scene, with Penny being properly introduced to the team_ ]

“So, if you two are partners…” She turned to Jaune with a wide grin. “I suppose that makes me your partner!”

Jaune nodded grimly. “Guess so.”

Penny’s smile faltered as she tilted her head, eyebrows knotting together sympathetically. “I didn't mean to upset you. I'm sorry about what happened to your last partner.”

“Yeah.” Jaune looked down and swallowed. “Me too.” He took a deep breath, and then looked up, rubbing his hands together. “So, what’d’ya say we hit the training rooms later, you can show us what you've got?”

Penny nodded firmly, her smile coming back in full force. “That sounds excellent.”

———

“So… I guess we’re still JNPR,” Nora ventured.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic was going to go on to explore Jaune and Penny’s growing friendship as partners, as well as Penny’s awkwardness as an interloper in the other three’s grief, with a good old helping of Jaune “why am I always outclassed about 5000 percent by my partners” Arc.


	3. Hogwarts AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The very little bit of writing I ever did for a pretty extensive Hogwarts AU I’d planned out in which the characters of RWBY attended Hogwarts alongside the characters from Harry Potter and Salem was another Dark Lord competing with Voldemort for power. As part of her takeover plan, she started breeding Dementors with other magical creatures to create a wizarding world equivalent of Grimm. This snippet was from the 7th book, where RWBY, JNPR, and the golden trio had all split up to fight on different fronts of the three way war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S., if it matters for character voices, Ren and Nora are Scottish, Jaune is Irish, and Pyrrha is English.
> 
> P.P.S. I feel like it’s also worth mentioning that Jaune is essentially a half-squib; he can do shielding magic really well, and that’s it. As such, the Patronus Charm is his go-to for... pretty much any and all dangerous situations.

“Everyone, close your eyes!” Ren shouted.

——————————

”What--” Jaune panted, doubling over to grab his chest, “--the _bloody hell_ \-- was that?”

“Basilisk,” Ren said simply.

“Ba-- _what_?”

“I don't understand,” Pyrrha said. “Why would a Patronus charm work on a basilisk?”

“It didn't _work_ \--” Jaune interjected.

“It worked more than it should have.”

“You don't have to say that just to make me feel better--”

“No, she's right,” Ren said. “They're not supposed to dissolve when you kill them, either. Or inspire that feeling of...”

“Existential dread?” Jaune suggested. “You know, beyond the whole giant, evil snake thing?”

Pyrrha nodded slowly. “It felt almost like a--”

“Dementor,” Ren finished with her. “I've… seen this kind of creature before,” he added.

“A basilisk?” Jaune asked.

“Dementor-like,” Ren clarified.


End file.
